Description

Cowans received his bachelor’s degree there in 1958, just 15 years after the school became the first college to offer a major in photography. In the 1960s, Cowans was a founding member of the New York City photographic collective Kamoinge, which became an important part of the Black Arts Movement. A painter as well as photographer, Cowans was also a member of AfriCOBRA, the Chicago-based artists’ group that helped define a Black aesthetic in art.